Wednesday, March 30, 2016

TTB responds to open letter on alcohol levels in wine

In January I posted an open letter to the Alcohol Tax and Trade Bureau, asking the agency to require wineries to give more accurate information to consumers about alcohol percentage.

U.S. law allows inaccurate label information about alcohol that would be illegal in most of the world. I argued that the U.S. wine industry is deliberately and systematically understating the amount of alcohol in wine, and U.S. law is allowing it to happen. You can read the letter here.

I sent the letter to the TTB on its site, and this morning I got a response! I had to create a secure TTB email account because the response is encrypted. How exciting! I am the recipient of important government information! Maybe the TTB is looking at my argument and wants to hear more? Or maybe it will just thank me for my input?

Here is the entirety of what a TTB Technical Advisor wrote. My entire email was included in the body of the email below it; I have truncated that part because you can read it elsewhere.

THAT took two and a half months to write?

OK, fine, I sent the same letter to the address listed in the secure, encrypted email. Let's follow the U.S. Government in action!

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Legal notices

1) The material on this blog has been created by W. Blake Gray, is protected under US copyright law and cannot be used without his permission.

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